Fujii, Sono and Midori (6/9/2021)

Emma Saito Lincoln: Today is June 9th, 2021 and this oral history is being recorded at the Japanese American Service Committee Building at 4427 North Clark Street in Chicago, Illinois. The interviewer is Emma Saito Lincoln and the interviewees are Sono and Midori Fujii. This interview is being recorded by the JASC Legacy Center in order to document the experiences of Japanese Americans in the Chicago area. To get us started, could you please each state your full name and your year of birth?

Sono Fujii: Sono Christie Fujii, 1951.

Midori Fujii: Midori Fujii, 1950.

Emma Saito Lincoln: And where were you born?

Sono Fujii: Chicago.

Midori Fujii: Both of us in Chicago.

Emma Saito Lincoln: And is that also where you grew up?

Midori Fujii: Yeah.

Sono Fujii: Yes.

Emma Saito Lincoln: And where were your parents born and raised?

Sono Fujii: Our father was born in Gifu, Japan in 1950. And our mother was, I mean, sorry, 1905. 1905, and our mother was born in 1920 in San Jose, California.

Emma Saito Lincoln: And could you tell me first, a little bit about your mother's family? Could you tell me where your maternal grandparents were born?

Sono Fujii: Maternal grandparents... Japan.

Emma Saito Lincoln: And do you know when they came to the US?

Midori Fujii: So, my grand, my maternal grandfather came here in the early 1900s right? He must have come in like 1910 or so? And our grandmother came in 1918, 1917, '18.

Emma Saito Lincoln: So initially, your grandfather came alone.

Midori Fujii: Yes. Mhm.

Emma Saito Lincoln: And then was he already married and he called his wife over?

Midori Fujii: No, he was not, but the marriage was through a family connection.

Sono Fujii: It was an arranged marriage, but it was not a picture book marriage.

Emma Saito Lincoln: Do you know what it was that motivated your grandfather to immigrate?

Sono Fujii: We don't know a lot about his family. Um, I suppose we could ask? We have one surviving aunt and one surviving uncle, but we, I don't know that much.

Midori Fujii: He came here, he was a businessman, which was in some ways, unusual at that time, so he came to the U.S. And then he was an insurance salesman in the Japanese American community in San Jose. Our grandmother was 00:03:00university-educated, very unusual at that time. She went to Doshisha. Right?

Sono Fujii: I don't think she went to Doshisha.

Midori Fujii: Where did she go?

Sono Fujii: She went to a women's college.

Midori Fujii: Where did she go? Okay.

Sono Fujii: There's, I think that's in her...

Midori Fujii: We should look in Issei Women it's in that.

Sono Fujii: Yeah. It's in Issei Women or it's in that book about the San Jose pioneers. I've been working on a family chronology and didn't bring it with me.

Emma Saito Lincoln: That's perfectly alright. So in any case, she was, she was university educated--

Midori Fujii: She was.

Sono Fujii: Yes.

Emma Saito Lincoln: --which was extremely unusual.

Sono Fujii: And she was Christian. Her father had been with the Japanese railroads and they were in, she spent some part of her childhood in Korea, with, working on the railroads, Japanese railroad built in Korea. I don't know much 00:04:00about that history, I'm not sure it's a good history, but I know she was there and she remembers the cold.

Emma Saito Lincoln: So, let's fast forward a little bit, and would you be able to tell me a little bit about your mother's childhood in California? Do you know much about what that experience was like for her?

Midori Fujii: I think we know a fair amount, just anecdotally. So she grew up, she was one of eight children, seven surviving, and the kids spanned an 18-year period. They lived next door to, what were the Okagakis to them?

Sono Fujii: Mr. Okagaki was her uncle and he knew Mr. Kimura, our grandfather. 00:05:00He knew Mr. Kimura. I think they were somehow both involved with the Japanese newspaper in town? I've seen connection-- I've, I've seen that they were both involved... I didn't necessarily put it together, but they may... Anyway, my grandmother was one of three sisters and I don't know how it happened, but she was the one who came to the United States and married Toshio Kimura. And they lived together.

Midori Fujii: So, the Okagakis and the Kimuras live next door to each other. I mean, literally, like no fence.

Sono Fujii: There was, there was these big, there was this big house, these two big houses, and the kids sort of ran back and forth. And even when-- they sort 00:06:00of paired off by age.

Midori Fujii: So there were, so the, there were nine Okagakis-- kids, so there were like, in all, like what, 16 kids in this like big extended family? I think the other thing that's notable at that time is that there were laws against Asians owning property, correct? And I know that for our grandparents, and I'm assuming for the Okagakis, too, and one of the people in town signed, an American white, Caucasian citizen, signed the deeds so that the, the property was in his name and not in our grandparents' name. And then when my mom and her older brother-- her younger brother became of age, because they were born in the U.S., They were able to transfer title to the house. To their names.

Sono Fujii: I think it, I think it went to Mom's name.

Midori Fujii: Mom's name first.

Sono Fujii: And then when she married and came to Chicago-

Midori Fujii: Married, okay. Correct. You're right.

Sono Fujii: She transferred it to her older brother, no to her brother and then the n-next oldest sister.

Midori Fujii: Right, but it was all of that sort of the land laws were like a big issue and probably one of the things that saved the house during the war when the, when people were evacuated, right? Because the house wasn't in their name. So, it actually probably protected the family in a way that's sort of weird.

Emma Saito Lincoln: Do you know, other than living in very close proximity to the Okagaki family, did your mother's family live within a Japanese American community?

Sono Fujii: Yes. So, my grandmother, until she died, was very active in the 00:08:00Methodist Church. It's a Japanese American Methodist church that was like two or three blocks. They lived in what is still now Japantown of San Jose.

Midori Fujii: Yeah. Geographically, they've, I don't know, somehow the city has mapped that out and they're in that quadrant.

Sono Fujii: Right. But the interesting thing about that, the school boundaries, there was just a little bit of Japantown that was in one school and there was, a majority of Japantown was in another school. And, Mom always said that she went to Jefferson School. She and the Minetas and the Okagakis, so Norm Mineta's, 00:09:00Norman Mineta's family was in that area, and Mr. Mineta was also an insurance salesman. They went to the better school and the other's kids that went to a different part of, different school. It wasn't as good. It was closer to the canneries. So, when we would visit, I remember visiting there in the 1960s, there was still a Del Monte processing plant, where you would hear the whistle blow and there was this big like water tower with the Del Monte sign.

Midori Fujii: But I, but I would say what, what is really striking about our mom's childhood and it's and my grandfather, was like quite a... He has, like bo-- I don't know, baskets of family video somewhere? And they had a very like 00:10:00typical American childhood. You know they went to the 4th of July parades, they did picnics, they went to Yosemite, they went to the ocean, my mom, you know my da-- my grandfather made ketchup in the backyard, you know it was kind of, you know a very, you know very American childhood in a lot of ways for the times. And they were also the Japanese that were living in town as opposed to the Japanese that were more doing agricultural work right?

Sono Fujii: 'Cause that was when Santa Clara Valley was like this big fruit and vegetable basket and so there were a lot of truck farmers in, in Santa Clara Valley.

Midori Fujii: So I do think that... So the backdrop to everything that happened later, in terms of the evacuation was, I mean, it was striking. So this was not 00:11:00a family that was like... You know, they observed Japanese custom and some holidays, but it was a very American family. My, like my mom and her siblings took piano lessons. They you know, did their school song. And, my aunt and my grandmother could still... n- my aunt and my mom would like sing their like junior high school song, you know so it was like really pretty a normal, typical American childhood and I don't think it ever occurred to my mom or to her dad that anything like the evacuation could happen, um and it just, not. Although Japantown was Japantown right? It was still pretty segregated. And as I think Sono alluded to, in, she mentioned it in the write up. When my mother's brother, who was I think older than her or just a hair younger-

Sono Fujii: No he was, he was, she was the first born, he was born...

Midori Fujii: --was born, he died within a very few days of his birth. My, our grandfather couldn't bury him in the regular communit-- in the regular cemetery and needed to find a plot for him way at the edge of the cemetery in town because he was not permitted, I guess. I don't know exactly what the law was, but...

Sono Fujii: And I, right, right, but there's a, now there's a Japanese section.

Midori Fujii: Yeah, in that cemetery.

Sono Fujii: --in that cemetery and that's where the rest of the family is buried. That's where all the Okagakis and the Kimuras are buried, but Megumi is still way out.

Midori Fujii: Way out by the fence.

Sono Fujii: Way out by the...

Midori Fujii: Literally, I'm serious, by the highway.

Sono Fujii: --by the highway. And actually my mom, when she died, she asked that some of her ashes be buried with him 'cause she didn't like him being there all by himself.

Emma Saito Lincoln: So other than what you've already mentioned about the restrictions on property ownership and cemetery segregation, are you aware of other ways in which your mother's family felt discriminated against during that time?

Sono Fujii: I mean...

Midori Fujii: Not directly, I think... You know, after all, so my mom was like, she was like, how old, 21 when the war started, right? In 1941. So she was the oldest of her siblings and she was in college.

Sono Fujii: She was at San Jose State.

Midori Fujii: She doesn't really talk a lot about the racism that no doubt was present right? And some of the political stuff, in terms of the economic kind of 00:14:00like biases and practices that were trying to marginalize the Japanese community, in particular. You know, and I'm sure that everybody was aware of the, the alien laws then and the fact that her parents couldn't be citizens, but I don't know that that was like a front and present issue. Do you get a sense of it?

Sono Fujii: I think it, I think it showed up in... I'm not, I don't think it was like in your face all the time but I remember, I think I must have been in high school, I asked my mom if she went to her prom and she said no. And she said that one of the-- she'd overheard a conversation between some of the Caucasian 00:15:00kids that one of the Nisei boys was taking another Nisei girl and the comment was, "Yeah, she's his girlfriend," and it was sort of like this sort of idea that she-- you could only ask another Nisei to prom.

Midori Fujii: Yeah, I think that probably was really clear. You didn't cross racial lines like that. That was probably, I think, the more... Sort of the, those norms then, were probably...

Sono Fujii: And I also, I don't know about how many friends she had. We don't know how many friends she had or if she had friends in the Caucasian community because the families, were so... There were so many kids. Like the Okagakis were, Mr. and Mrs. Okagaki were a little bit older than my grandparents and they 00:16:00had, some of their older children were maybe seven or eight years older than my mother, who was the oldest. But like my mom was paired up with someone, she was paired up with Ellen and Eddie and Janet were paired up.

Midori Fujii: You know so when the families would go, I mean they, when they would go, like that those pairs, but when they would go on a like a family trip, obviously you don't take 16 kids. Or even if you could, they're not all the same age. But they, those cohorts, like five or six of them would pile in the car and go with our grandfather, so some of the Okagakis, some of my mom's. So, but they like, so Mom and Guyo and Ellen and those guys would always do something together. So, it's like a, a really close cousinship right?

Sono Fujii: Right. I mean, even though they weren't, I mean technically... Our grandmother was cousins to the Okagaki kids but generationally, I mean, she was 00:17:00aligned with her aunt and uncle. But I think that also, my mom said it made my grandmother's life challenging because she had to be obedient to her husband, her aunt, and her uncle.

Midori Fujii: So yeah, maybe one of the things, to add is that she's 15 years younger than our grandfather and that wasn't that uncommon then, and that's the age difference between our parents.

Emma Saito Lincoln: So your grandmother was 15 years younger than your grandfather, and then your mother also was 15 years younger than your father.

Midori Fujii: Correct.

Emma Saito Lincoln: And so I'm getting the sense that you're not quite sure how much social interaction or friendship your mother had outside of that large 00:18:00familial unit because there were so many children.

Midori Fujii: Yeah you know what? I think the thing that it, the way I would say is notable by its absence is their conversation about relationships outside of that cohort or pictures of people outside.

Sono Fujii: But we don't have a, we don't have a lot of pictures of their growing up?

Midori Fujii: Well, there's, Juni has a lot. They did in San Jose. There's a lot of albums there. And then there's a lot of like photography, like video, whatever you call it, motion picture right on those, on those slides, and the big reels, but those are all of family and Japanese holidays and the 4th of July. And I think one of the things that my mom talked a lot about was building floats for the 4th of July, 'cause it's California right, and you can just put flowers and everything on them, and so that was kind of a big deal.

Emma Saito Lincoln: So let's fast forward a little bit. You mentioned that your 00:19:00mother was in college when Pearl Harbor happened, and...

Midori Fujii: Wasn't she at San Jose State?

Sono Fujii: She was at San Jose State. I actually just saw this last night in the materials that you brought over. There was her transcript from, I don't know it was from San Jose State... It said that she was enrolled in the spring semester at San Jose State in 1942 and she withdrew on May 27th, 1942, but she was granted like 10 and one quarter credit hours for the work that she'd completed. And it's like, "Yeah, that's when she was shipped off to Santa Anita."

Midori Fujii: Well, of note they, where they sent the transcript was to her 00:20:00father in Heart Mountain. That's the mailing address on the transcript.

Sono Fujii: The mailing, it says that your guardian and it gives his name and his barrack address and that just like, that's just like... devastating.

Emma Saito Lincoln: What year was she in school? Was she quite close to graduating at that point?

Sono Fujii: She went to ... What's the other thing we saw, I saw last night? She went to NYU. She was, she had attended school at NYU and I think this was stuff that she asked for when she applied to go to graduate school in the early 1960s, so she's got these transcripts. You know--

Midori Fujii: So she left camp, I think, to go to, to NYU. You could leave, right? You could leave Heart Mountain if you had a place to go that wasn't in the Western command. So I think she went first, I think she went to NY-- to New 00:21:00York, and then she went to Cleveland and worked for the American Friends Service Committee. I think that's the sequence, right?

Sono Fujii: I'm not sure. I haven't gotten that far, but there's-

Midori Fujii: Something like that.

Sono Fujii: But there's, but yeah, I was surprised to see that she'd gone to NYU. I was like, "I didn't know that."

Midori Fujii: Not for long.

Sono Fujii: But like maybe, but she definitely left from... And she left camp before Daddy did. She left before he did, which surprised me to read that. But I think he was doing work with the WRA in camp.

Midori Fujii: Correct. And I think she graduated from San Jose State.

Sono Fujii: Yes. Her diploma is from San Jose State.

Emma Saito Lincoln: Okay. So maybe the credits that she received after leaving camp were applied toward her degree at San Jose.

Sono Fujii: Right, they transferred.

Emma Saito Lincoln: So let's back up a little bit then, to, to Pearl Harbor. And you mentioned Santa Anita and then Heart Mountain. Did her whole family go together?

Sono Fujii: Yes.

Midori Fujii: Yes.

Emma Saito Lincoln: And the Okagaki family, also?

Sono Fujii: No. One of the Okaga--Two of the Okagakis, so... Henry was the oldest Okagaki son. He had already, I think he'd married and he was a doctor? He was not there. He did not get evacuated.

Midori Fujii: Who?

Sono Fujii: Henry.

Midori Fujii: Henry?

Sono Fujii: Henry and Martha.

Midori Fujii: Yeah, he was in Wisconsin and somebody else was in Denver.

Sono Fujii: That was Guyo , Guyo married Larry Tajiri, who was the...

Midori Fujii: Rocky Mountain Shinbun, right?

Sono Fujii: No, I thought the Pacific Citizen.

Midori Fujii: Pacific. Okay.

Sono Fujii: Pacific Citizen. And they, they were in either Salt Lake City or in 00:23:00Denver and I think, I think I have a memory of when they were being transported from Santa Anita to Heart Mountain. They may have seen Guyo and Larry like at the train station or something.

Midori Fujii: So the only reas-- every, all the younger Okagakis were, went to Heart Mountain. It was only the, the people that were old enough not to be in San Jose when this happened.

Sono Fujii: Right.

Midori Fujii: Yeah.

Emma Saito Lincoln: Okay. I'd like to pick up the thread on incarceration in a little bit. But first, I'd, I'd like to talk about your father and his story and how he came to the U.S. So, let's start with, what could you tell me about your father's family in Japan?

Midori Fujii: You want me to do that?

Sono Fujii: You can, sure.

Midori Fujii: So our dad was one of five children, and the only boy.

Sono Fujii: And the youngest.

Midori Fujii: The youngest of five and the only boy. He was born, his dad, he was what, 15 months or two years or something like that when his dad died, leaving a lot of debt.

Sono Fujii: Yeah his, his dad had co-signed for debt for some of his workers. His dad owned a... My father described it as a transportation company, but really, it was like a rickshaw company, where you know people... It wasn't a taxi. It was a human taxi.

Midori Fujii: So, I think one of the things that's really notable is my, our dad almost never talked about his childhood. It was only when we were like in 00:25:00college, even. And I finally said to my dad, "You just have to talk to us a little bit. We don't know anything." And I think we knew a little from our mom. His childhood was, was extremely difficult. They were extremely poor. So the things that we knew about my dad were like anecdotal. Like, he had malnutrition illnesses when he was a kid. And so we knew he had beriberi, but you know because you're a kid, you're like, okay whatever.

Sono Fujii: --said he had tapeworms.

Midori Fujii: He had, yeah, parasites, a lot of different things. And we knew, and then as we got older, we knew that some, several of his sisters had died before they really reached adulthood. And so he really didn't talk a lot about some of that history because it was, I think, so difficult. And it, so he was apprenticed... In Japan at that time, public school was only free until, I guess 00:26:00you were in-

Sono Fujii: Sixth grade. Like sixth grade.

Midori Fujii: Middle school, sixth grade, something like that. And my dad writes in his, in the little letter that, in some of the correspondence that he wrote to us, that, you know he was a bright kid and he was respected in his class. But when he was in sixth grade, he couldn't go forward because he had--

Sono Fujii: His mother couldn't afford to send--

Midori Fujii: His mom couldn't afford to send him. So she apprenticed him to a silk merchant. And I think that was like, he writes about that as being deeply upsetting and feeling, I think very left behind.

Sono Fujii: And, and very angry.

Midori Fujii: Yeah. So, don't know a lot about those years except that he studied and went-- He didn't go to school, but he studied English and he studied whatever he needed to study to pass the college entrance exams.

Sono Fujii: Right so... So I've found-

Midori Fujii: That part you found.

Sono Fujii: That part I found. He was apprenticed to a silk merchant in Kyoto in what I think is the Nishijin district, which is known for its weaving. And it was very, very hard work. And he was expected to work like six days a week until 10 o'clock at night. And so he became, I don't know how, but he somehow connected with the local Christian Church there and learned that Doshisha University would accept people if you didn't have, you didn't have to have a middle school and high school education diploma to get into, into Doshisha but 00:28:00you needed to learn English. You needed to know English. And so because he had to work until 10 o'clock at night, he couldn't, he couldn't go to night school. So he took correspondence classes to learn English. And he told the owner of the store that he was doing this to, to improve the business prospects for the store. I mean he's... So that he could get the owner to support him doing this. But he talks about studying at night with his kimono over his head so that he wouldn't disturb the other apprentices and the other people. And I think he came to understand that there wasn't a lot of future there because it was probably 00:29:00very tightly controlled. I don't know if there was a system of guilds or apprenticeships or... But there wasn't a lot of opportunity. He said you could stay in the same position for years and years and--

Midori Fujii: There wasn't that mobility in Japan in general at that time.

Sono Fujii: Right. So he, for him to have gone to, to university was, it took an incredible amount of discipline.

Midori Fujii: It also crossed a line with his mother because she's, was a devout Buddhist. And he is now, Christianity was sort of the, sort of path to education at that time in some ways. So, and I think he was just interested in it.

Sono Fujii: Right. But she was a very, she was a very devout Buddhist.

Midori Fujii: Mm-hmm, absolutely.

Sono Fujii: I mean, to the extent of when, when my dad was younger, the French 00:30:00Air Force was helping the Japanese develop their air force. And he got very interested and he would go and he would watch. And I actually did a little research on this and there was like a, an airbase nearby and there still is an airbase, I think near Gifu. And I think his grades slipped. And his mother said to him, "How can I face your father in paradise?" It's like, oh.

Midori Fujii: Just don't have anything on Catholic guilt huh?

Sono Fujii: Just like Catholic guilt, Jewish guilt.

Midori Fujii: Buddhist guilt. There you go.

Sono Fujii: Buddhist guilt.

Emma Saito Lincoln: So it sounds like through sheer determination and discipline, your father as a self-taught man was accepted into Doshisha 00:31:00University. And what did he study there? Do you know?

Sono Fujii: It was a Christian Protestant school. That was, I mean, it had a lot of connections with American universities. I mean, I think you were mentioning Amherst and--

Midori Fujii: And Oberlin.

Sono Fujii: And Oberlin. And he... He, he did... You were talking about the, the conflict with his mom about going to... This conversion to Christianity. And she, she went and talked to her priest and he, he gave it his blessing. And so 00:32:00his mom was okay with it because I think he said he's, he's you know advancing his education and you know it's to make him a better person. So he came to the United States in--

Midori Fujii: Well, I think there's like, there's another piece in there. So then he was in, he had to do a, what a, I guess what we would call an internship now. And he worked in some of these very extremely impoverished communities in Japan.

Sono Fujii: That was the Nishijin Weavers.

Midori Fujii: Was that where he worked in that community as a minister?

Sono Fujii: Yeah.

Midori Fujii: Okay.

Sono Fujii: Yeah.

Midori Fujii: But he said, so this is in one of his letters, that he became really disillusioned with the church. That, that the church really didn't have the answers of like, you know in the life hereafter. And you just have to like-

Sono Fujii: You have to suffer.

Midori Fujii: You have to suffer.

Sono Fujii: And then you get your reward when you die.

Midori Fujii: And he just thought that that was like, that the church had nothing to offer the people who he was trying to minister to. And I think that was one of the reasons he came to the U.S. He thought that by coming to, to the theology school and working on his master's degree in theology, that he would find some answers. So then he did come to the U.S. I think in 1931, Oberlin had an exchange program. I think they still do with some of the, the Japanese universities. I don't know if it's, the Shansi program is there now. I don't know if he was part of that or what it was. But he came to Oberlin and eventually earned his master's degree in divini-- in theology. But never became ordained because in part, he decided that in fact the church, even though he had 00:34:00a master's and was working on a theology degree also did not have a great deal to offer people who were... he was pretty disi--, I think pretty disillusioned. I don't know whether that's the word. Not a fan of that. So he stepped away.

Emma Saito Lincoln: So he comes to the, he comes to the U.S., he gets his master's in theology, and then he steps away from, from the church. Where was he living when Pearl Harbor happened?

Sono Fujii: So, so there's like from 1934 to 1941 we're talking about. So he's in Oberlin in 1934, and at that time he'd already become very, very opposed to 00:35:00the rise of militarism in Japan. And apparently there were a lot of heated discussion groups at Oberlin among some of the Japanese students there.

Midori Fujii: Because the Manchurian invasion was in like the--

Sono Fujii: There was Manchurian, the Mukden bridge incident. And I mean, he writes about how he, he had intended, his plan was to return to Japan even though he didn't like what was going on there. But he had to make money to earn his return fare. And so he had worked in New York at restaurants in the summers and he went back to New York and was working there.

Midori Fujii: So, so the thing that's... The other thing that sort of fits in 00:36:00here is that he didn't come to the United States as Ryoichi Fujii, right? He came here as Katsu Asano. And I don't know exactly when he, when in that period, but it would've been in that period.

Sono Fujii: Right.

Midori Fujii: He decided to change his name and overstay his student visa.

Sono Fujii: He also joined the American Communist Party.

Midori Fujii: Right.

Sono Fujii: Because it was the only--

Midori Fujii: Vocal group?

Sono Fujii: Vocal group against Japanese militarism. And I also think that you know his experiences in Japan with the workers, the weavers, really sort of led him more to, more sympathetic to that than unbridled capitalism. So, he's in the 00:37:00American Communist Party in New York, and then he gets to Los Angeles.

Midori Fujii: God knows how, right?

Sono Fujii: I don't know how. I mean, I'm still piecing that together. And I, and he becomes involved with the party there as well. And I'm not exactly sure what he's doing there. Is he working in a restaurant? Is he working in Japantown? Where is he living? I don't know. But anyway, he's in Los Angeles when Pearl Harbor happens and he's sent to Santa Anita.

Emma Saito Lincoln: So your mother's family and your father all ended up in Santa Anita.

Sono Fujii: Right. And that's where they met.

Midori Fujii: Actually, I think our dad met our grandmother first.

Sono Fujii: Right.

Midori Fujii: Because he was teaching American history classes?

Sono Fujii: American history, American government. And he, he felt that it was important-- He always, I mean because he was opposed to militarism, he always felt that America was a better solution, was you know, the answer. And he wanted the Issei to understand more about America, American history, and American government. And so he started teaching these classes. But, and this what's so interesting, we still have his books from that era and-

Midori Fujii: Books he purchased.

Sono Fujii: Books he purchased on American history and on American government. 00:39:00And, and some of them, I mean we, I can tell by the copyright date, the publication date that they would've been you know pre-war or during that time. And some of them even have his name and his barrack address from like Heart Mountain or Santa Anita. So that makes me happy to know that this would've been one of his sources. And years later, Henri Mom, Mrs. Okagaki, the kids, she was called Henri Mom for Henry's mom told me that when she was in camp, she would go to my dad's lectures. And she said, "And we called him sensei." It's like, okay.

Midori Fujii: So the books are books on Lincoln, Jeffersonian democracy, Thomas Payne. What are the other ones in there at that period? The Federalist Papers. 00:40:00Just a bunch of like really you know classic sort of American history kind of.

Emma Saito Lincoln: And he was teaching these classes both at Santa Anita and at-

Midori Fujii: At Heart Mountain.

Sono Fujii: Right.

Midori Fujii: Yeah. Primarily to the Issei.

Sono Fujii: Yeah, to the Issei.

Emma Saito Lincoln: Now your mother and father met at Santa Anita. Did they kind of strike up with each other right away?

Midori Fujii: Did they meet at Santa Anita?

Sono Fujii: They must have.

Midori Fujii: Well, I don't know. I don't know where exactly they met. Sometime during the war through her mom.

Sono Fujii: Through her mom or her dad.

Midori Fujii: Yeah. And her mom was like not, not a f- said he's too much older. I think partly because that's her experience. But they liked him. I mean, he was like respectable enough.

Sono Fujii: And he was, he was not that much younger than she was.

Midori Fujii: Who?

Sono Fujii: Daddy was-- Daddy. I mean, Daddy was born in 1905. Grandma was born 00:41:00in like, 19-- 1898, 1897, something like that? So I know that when they wanted to get married, she was a little bit, she was a little concerned because she'd been widowed so young and she didn't want that to you know, happen to my mom and have seven kids.

Midori Fujii: So I think the other thing in terms of the war, our mom was like devastated by the evacuation and the war. And I think my dad, our dad, not so much. He was like, kind of like, that's what governments do. I don't think he, for a number of reasons, of course, number one, he's not a U.S. citizen. He's not born here.

Sono Fujii: He doesn't have family here.

Midori Fujii: He doesn't have family here. But also he grew up in, in militaristic Japan, right? Where governments did whatever. And so I don't think, 00:42:00he didn't experience a sense of betrayal that my, our mom and grandfather experienced. It's very different. I mean I think he believed in this country and that kind of thing, but I don't think it undermined him in the same way. I think his, the challenge that he had was not going back to Japan 'cause he left his mom, her only son, and he never returned. And she died before, you know during the war or shortly thereafter. So you know that sort of, in terms of his history, I would think that's probably the sort of the defining moment is not going back, not taking care of her, not reassuring her. Because he remembers her saying goodbye to him and at the har-- at Yokohama Harbor. And that's like, I think a searing moment for him. And I don't think he, he never recovered from that.

Emma Saito Lincoln: Right. Because in the lead up to the war he was in Los 00:43:00Angeles and, and trying to save up money to return to Japan, is... You think?

Midori Fujii: Yeah.

Sono Fujii: I don't know when he gave up the idea of returning to Japan. I do know that at one point the party asked for his passport and he gave it to them. And I think at that point, that's when he became undocumented, illegal, whatever. And that plus his joining the party were what, was the basis for the, his arrest in 1953.

Midori Fujii: So I think he changed his name in LA, right? It wasn't in New York. I don't know. It was one of those like weird things. Like, pick a name and then he picked a name. Didn't seem like it was a real thought through. Right?

Sono Fujii: Ryoichi though, I think the name, the name has significance though. It's Ichi is number one.

Midori Fujii: Okay.

Sono Fujii: So, I'm not sure what the kanji are.

Midori Fujii: But so he was known as Bob Fujii and I know that was-

Sono Fujii: Because I think Ryoichi was just way too hard for Americans to pronounce.

Midori Fujii: So like, just call me Bob or Robert or whatever. So it was just one of those, how did that happen?

Emma Saito Lincoln: When you were growing up, did you know that your father had changed his name at some point?

Sono Fujii: I didn't know until I was in high school. And it was... You'd found out earlier.

Midori Fujii: I don't think so.

Sono Fujii: Mmmmm, I thought you'd found out earlier, you'd seen some papers or something?

Midori Fujii: Yeah, not really. I don't think so. I mean if it was, it's like 00:45:00one of those things that just doesn't register at that age, you're in high school, you just immigration and all that is, it's not front and center in the conversation. But back then, not so much. We knew vaguely kind of about the, the deportation hearings and that kind of thing, but it--

Sono Fujii: I didn't, all I knew was that daddy wasn't working anymore. We were eating a lot of grilled cheese and tomato soup and he was home.

Midori Fujii: Right. That's what we knew.

Sono Fujii: That's what we knew.

Emma Saito Lincoln: And this is after the war? Correct? During your childhood.

Sono Fujii: Right. So he's arrested in 1953. And I think it's not until 1956 that the deportation proceedings are finally finished. I mean, they're put 00:46:00behind the, the officer renders his decision and they suspend deportation proceedings. Which is another long story.

Midori Fujii: So we've jumped ahead here.

Emma Saito Lincoln: Yeah, let's, let's back up a little bit to when everybody's still in camp.

Midori Fujii: Okay.

Emma Saito Lincoln: And you mentioned a sense of betrayal that your mother and grandfather felt, and I'm wondering if you could expand on that a little bit. What do you know of, of their time in camp and how they felt about it?

Sono Fujii: So when they got to, I think this was Heart Mountain. When they got to Heart Mountain, they were a family of nine. So two, two parents, my mother who would've been 20-

Midori Fujii: 22.

Sono Fujii: 22, by that time, late, 21, 22. And Yo who would've been six or 00:47:00seven maybe?

Midori Fujii: No, she was born in '37.

Sono Fujii: So she would've been five. In a one bedroom, in a one room. And that just wasn't going to work for my mother. And both, I heard from several, several members of the family that my mom went down and she demanded more space and she got it. I mean, she just wasn't going to put up with it. And she, she got more space for the family. Was still not a lot of space, but my fath- our grandfather had a correspondence with, I think her name was Nancy Cotherine.

Midori Fujii: Nancy Cotherine, Nancy Storm?

Sono Fujii: He had a correspondence with a friend on the outside.

Midori Fujii: Caucasian.

Sono Fujii: Caucasian, and I...

Midori Fujii: Those, there are a number of letters.

Sono Fujii: There are a number of letters which, she gave to my mom and me. She'd saved them. And we don't have her side of the correspondence, but we have his correspondence. And she gave it to us in 1972 and we donated it to the Hoover Institute. So that correspondence now is there.

Midori Fujii: We might have copies of it here.

Sono Fujii: We do, we definitely have copies of it. But he speaks very clearly about his sense of betrayal. And one of his quotes was used in that-

Midori Fujii: "Then they came for..."

Sono Fujii: "And then they came for me", the exhibit that was here. It said, 'I 00:49:00never thought I'd see my children behind barbed wire.' And it was like Toshio Kimura. And it was like, "oh my God". And he died. He got his family back and he was dead within a month. Just, killed him.

Midori Fujii: So I think that like if I think about our, that family, like the war was devastating. I think that other families have, other people have written about the way in which the, they way in which camp was set up and the, the dining situation and that kind of thing really destroyed the family unit. 'Cause, and particularly the, the people that would've been affected by that would've been our uncles are, who were sort of in that eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 age where they're just old enough to be out and running around. And I think that 00:50:00the boys for probably reasons of that and also some of the prejudice against Asian men, that kind of thing, were really, really impacted by the war in a way that was, I don't think we really understand all that at this point.

Sono Fujii: And that, and that their father died.

Midori Fujii: And then upon return home, their dad died within a month. So, and so now their mom is like, you know she is a, she's a widow. She's caring for kids, like five kids, right? Or four kids of school age or high school. The older kids would've been my mom, my, her older, her younger... The oldest three were old enough to be out. But the, the two younger boys and my aunt, particularly, were at home. And they have been, you know they're the ones that came back to the house, and the racism and the prejudice and everything else 00:51:00that occurred, I think, post-war in San Jose and certainly were old enough to have been aware of that right before they were, they were evacuated. You know not old enough to be... I think as like young adults-- my mom was a young adult, more outraged. I think that was my mom's perspective, right? Much more, she was much more angry than she was harmed by that. But I think the younger kids, if you just think about how that, that kids input that at that age, very difficult, and our grand-- I don't know that my grandparents talked that much about it with them. My mom remembers her mother saying on the day they left, "It's a beautiful day to be leaving home." That's all she said. It's like, the place is falling apart and that's sort of that understated you know gaman.

Sono Fujii: Yeah, shikata ga nai.

Midori Fujii: Yeah, so--

Emma Saito Lincoln: So, that's what she said the day they left their home to go to Santa Anita.

Midori Fujii: They left, they left San Jose. That's correct.

Sono Fujii: "It's a beautiful to be taking a journey."

Midori Fujii: Yeah, so you know that there are things that didn't get processed in the midst of all of that, right?

Emma Saito Lincoln: Do you think you saw in your uncles and your aunt the after effects of that, now as, you know as adults, yourselves looking back on what you experienced with them?

Midori Fujii: You know, only you can only infer that.

Sono Fujii: And, and also you know, we were here. We were in Chicago. They were in, in California.

Midori Fujii: But I do think some of--

Sono Fujii: Travel wasn't that easy and certainly we didn't have the money to go to, to California. I mean we saw, there's pictures of mom taking us there when 00:53:00we were like toddlers and then we went in '60 and '63.

Midori Fujii: So, I mean I have, I have a real clear opinion about that and I don't feel like, that's personal. That's their story. And I don't feel I can share that, other than to say that I think it profoundly affected them and was negative. The one thing I could say is that my uncle, who never married and was really very private and very much sort of his own person for a long time, he, he had cancer in the end of his life and he finally let some of the wall down. And the, the memories that he has of his childhood and being with his dad are just, you know they're lovely memories. But it's kind of heartbreaking, in the, knowing the entire context of the loss that he experienced and the absolute, I 00:54:00think real absence of acknowledgement of that loss right? Because after the war, everybody comes home and it's a crisis. My grandmother is just trying to survive. And you know he went on to be, I mean he was like stupidly smart. He got a patent for torpedoes or something from UC Berkeley. I mean it's like we went through his stuff after he died and it's like you know he never shared any of it.

Sono Fujii: "Who knew this stuff? Who knew this?"

Midori Fujii: He was just really private about it!

Sono Fujii: He has a, he has a patent for anti-roll technology.

Midori Fujii: You know it's like all this stuff that, and the family is like, "Well, who knew?" Right? But I think it was, you know just, I don't know that people felt like they could speak up in that. I think that there was a lot of that there's just too much else going on to have those conversations. So, but I would say that was, you know, we always thought that that was probably what 00:55:00happened, but that was a kind of a window in. But it really took, he was in his eighties when he did some art therapy and somebody said to him, "We need to work on this. Like, let's, let's do this so you can be more at peace." And, and he was able to do that and yeah it's like, that was a gift for him for sure. Yeah.

Emma Saito Lincoln: Let's switch back a little bit to your, to your mother, and also let's shift forward into the postwar resettlement period. You were describing how your, your mother, partly due to what age she was when this all happened, was able to be angry about it in a way that her siblings weren't. And I--

Midori Fujii: Angry and vocal.

Emma Saito Lincoln: And vocal. Which plays into how history plays out later, correct?

Midori Fujii: Yes.

Sono Fujii: Yes.

Emma Saito Lincoln: Could we talk a little bit about that and your mother's role in, in the redress movement?

Sono Fujii: Um, so this would've been in the...

Midori Fujii: 70s.

Sono Fujii: 70s and early 80s. I have to admit, I was not, I was not hooked into what really she was doing.

Midori Fujii: I don't know how she got connected with William Hohri and that group, but she was.

Sono Fujii: But she was and we know she gave testimony at the commission here in Chicago.

Midori Fujii: She worked, she worked pretty hard with NCJAR. She has a lot of, like I would just remember a lot of conversations. But it seemed like, I think 00:57:00one of the things probably should comment on is that for a lot of sansei, they never really heard about the evacuation growing up, of the internm-- any of that. That was not a conversation that happened in their families, not so in our family.

Sono Fujii: I mean, we definitely knew about it.

Midori Fujii: Yeah.

Sono Fujii: I mean, and enough so, enough so that I did a lot of research in, in college and in graduate school on it.

Midori Fujii: But even as little kids right? So my mom, our mom was like pretty... I don't know. Whatever you, I don't know what word you would use to describe her.

Sono Fujii: Vocal. I mean, she didn't-

Midori Fujii: Vocal, yeah but--

Sono Fujii: We knew about it. We knew that they had met there. We knew that her father had died. Because that was the only thing that made her cry.

Midori Fujii: Right, I think that was the notable thing, as kids.

Sono Fujii: That was the only thing that made her cry.

Midori Fujii: But every time she talked about it. And she, so she wasn't like a 00:58:00tearful person. You know that was like, a lot of things could happen and there wasn't, she was dry eyed, but not this. So I think that, and you know, as a kid, you flag that as notable. And also didn't realize that other families weren't talking about this.

Sono Fujii: Right. I mean and when we, even within her extended family. So when we went to Heart Mountain in 2015 and some of the, the sansei Okagaki were there. And this was like, this was the first time we really spent time with them, just because you know they were there. They were all... We didn't grow up there. And I remember one of the Okagaki cousins saying that he didn't know anything about the evacuation until he was taking piano lessons with June, our 00:59:00aunt. She, she gave piano lessons in the family parlor and you know I guess the Okagakis got sent over there for piano lessons. And um, she said-- he said to, he said to me, he said, "That's how I learned about it." I said, "Your parents never talked to you about it?" He said, "No, I had not a clue." I mean these were, Scott is Craigy's son, right?

Midori Fujii: Yeah. He's 60, yeah 65. I think the other thing is, when we grew up, so the Japanese, one of the areas that the Japanese resettled was in Hyde Park. right? And there were, I don't think we understood that, that connection as kids. Like that was really part of Resettlers. I think that piece was just, you know there were other, some Japanese in Hyde Park. Not that many, but a fair 01:00:00amount, a number. And um, so that's the, I think, and my, and our dad worked at the Shimpo then at that time, so...

Emma Saito Lincoln: So let's talk a little bit more about your growing up years then. And it, it does sound as though you, much more so than some others of your generation, were exposed to this history.

Midori Fujii: We were, but we weren't really an integral part of the Japanese community either, which was really odd. So my mom really had stepped away from that in some ways. I don't really understand all of that. Our dad was involved in it, obviously because he was working at the Shimpo. And what--

Sono Fujii: Since there were financial costs for that.

Midori Fujii: Yeah, for sure. But he would, you know he was involved with the Japanese community and the faith community more, not as a minister. But, but really was, you know we weren't like sort of an integral part of that. I think 01:01:00one of the things, some of the, our classmates and I, I've talked with them a little bit about it as like we've gotten older and they said, "Oh yeah, we went to Cub Scouts with all the other sansei." And I'm like, "Really? You did that? I didn't know that was going on." Well obviously-

Sono Fujii: Well we wouldn't have gone to Cub Scouts.

Midori Fujii: We wouldn't have gone to Cub Scouts.

Sono Fujii: There weren't, but there weren't-- we were not aware of nisei or sansei-based social organizations. There was not, as far as we knew, a, a nisei church. Although there obviously were. I think, you know my--

Midori Fujii: We went to the picnics, we went to natsu matsuri.

Sono Fujii: We went to those.

Midori Fujii: For sure. Yeah.

Sono Fujii: And then I also think that there was a, there was a real concerted effort. I mean when you read the, the history, I mean there were, when people 01:02:00left the camps, they were instructed not to be clannish. Not to be...

Midori Fujii: To assimilate.

Sono Fujii: They were told to assimilate and not to stick with their own kind and they should, they should stay away from... You know like, we didn't-- There were no Japanese language schools here. We weren't taught Japanese. Japanese was spoken if my parents didn't want us to understand.

Midori Fujii: There were Japanese schools, but not around us I think.

Sono Fujii: I mean maybe there was more so on the north side? But we certainly... And I think that was like a source of friction in their marriage, too. My parents' marriage. That he was so involved in the Japanese community and not making a ton of money with the paper. My mom had to go back to work and I think at one point they had to take a, they had to ask one of her brothers for a 01:03:00loan, which I--

Midori Fujii: I think, so the other thing, you know, I guess there are a number of things. One is that because of just their background, we grew... Hyde Park is Hyde Park in Chicago and it's a pretty activist community. So I remember growing up and being real involved, my parents being fairly involved in the civil rights movement and being aware of what was going on in terms of the Chicago school boycotts and that kind of thing. The other thing is that, I had thought this to be the case and then we just read through some of my dad's correspondence, and I think it's fair to say that his, that the paper was his ministry in, in this way, that he, when he was in camp, he really, there was a big move to try and 01:04:00encourage people to leave, to say, "You don't have to stay here." But my dad felt like, people can't come to Chicago without knowing anything. And so he was part of the Resettlers, and I think he was also part of like... he said, "But a community needs some way of communicating, and, and a paper is, you know, that's the way to do that." And so I do think that, so one of his correspondence with somebody that was one of his witnesses for the deportation does allu-- does say that directly. You're working in your community is, that is your ministry. You have done your work, it's just been in a different way than you were originally planning. And I do, I do think that that was really very true. I also think that my dad's sense of where he came from, in terms of, and the guilt he carried for leaving Japan and not going back. His, he did say one time something like, "I 01:05:00don't ever want to be too comfortable." Like, the idea of becoming materially sort of settled. I think that that was really, he was very conflicted about that. My mom wasn't. Our mom wasn't. She grew up in a... she was as Sono said, we're not wealthy but an established family. They had a house. They had some ownership.

Sono Fujii: They had a car, yes.

Midori Fujii: A car. You know those kinds of things. And so, but after the war, my dad had never had that. They came to Chicago, and I remember we, we lived in a, would've been kind of what we would call now, like well it was not really quite a one bedroom apartment. It was like a kitchen, dining room, living room altogether and then a little room off the side and a bathroom down the hall. So they didn't.. When we were very young, just, just even bathing and that kind of 01:06:00thing, I mean if you're a kid, you're in the kitchen sink. If you're my mom, you're down the hall. And that was like, I don't think that it bothered my dad in the same way. Right? I mean why would it? He was a single man, then he went to camp. My mom grew-- our mom grew up in a house, and camp was like an outrage to her. But then, you know and then she came to Chicago and married and she's now going down the hall to have to go to the bathroom and have a congregate situation. They moved eventually, like not short after that, to a, a house with, that had a bathroom and a, a full bathroom within the house. But, for us that was not a big deal. But I'm sure for her, can't imagine.

Sono Fujii: Right they, they, they I mean, part of it was that the post-war housing shortage, right So a lot of these big apartments were split into multiple units. But I think the first two places we lived in were, were 01:07:00apartments that had been split. You know, and it wasn't until 1960-

Midori Fujii: '60.

Sono Fujii: '60 or so that they had their own bedroom. I mean they slept on the sleeper sofa in the living room and we had the bedroom. And I mean I remember like when it was, when it would be raining and there would be big thunder, you and I would like try to go out there and crawl underneath the sleeper sofa 'cause we were scared. And she would say, "Go back to your room."

Midori Fujii: Right, under the view that if lightning strikes it strikes you first, I guess. (laughs)

Sono Fujii: But I mean I also think it was, it was also a sense of, you know, it was a privacy issue. You know?

Midori Fujii: Yeah, I think they just, right, it was also like you know pull yourself, it was that like American metho-- thing about kids need to like, sleep in their own beds, that whole mentality, too. It probably was a privacy thing but...

Emma Saito Lincoln: What would you say are some of the values that your parents tried to instill in you?

Sono Fujii: Honesty, hard work.

Midori Fujii: I don't even think it was like talked about. Right? I don't think. I don't really-

Sono Fujii: There was nothing, there was nothing, I mean, we didn't go to church. We weren't--

Midori Fujii: Well, we went to church eventually under our own steam, but...

Sono Fujii: Right, but we didn't grow up in a congregation where you were told to be a good Christian.

Midori Fujii: It's like my daughter said to me one time, she goes, "We didn't 01:09:00have rules growing up." And I said, "What are you talking about?" And I said, "What about share, be kind, you know be honest, like work hard?"

Sono Fujii: I think it was modeled.

Midori Fujii: Yeah, and she was like, "Oh, those rules." And I'm like, "Yeah." She goes, "Well, you didn't punish us. We just would never not do that." And that's pretty much how I think we grew up. It was like, I think that's in the, I don't know. I mean, I don't remember really being told that. Other than, I think the other thing was like, I think through stories and understanding other people's sacrifice and knowing the family history, there, you know it was kind of a little bit more like, don't put your needs first. Like, think about other people. Think about somebody else's perspective. Don't, and it was never said, 01:10:00don't be selfish. It was, don't ask for something that's going to make somebody else feel bad because they can't give it to you. You know that's certainly a, for me, like a very big thing. Like if you, if we asked our parents for something and they couldn't give it. Like, it only takes once or twice as a kid for you to look at that and say, "Not going to do that." Because they weren't mean about it. They were hurt by it and you just don't go there anymore. And we knew that things were not easy.

Sono Fujii: But I don't think we, I don't think we understood how financially challenged or strapped they were.

Midori Fujii: No.

Sono Fujii: Because we didn't, because that's just what you know. I mean so, I mean I didn't realize until we had, my mother would make a stir fry of hot dogs 01:11:00and cabbage and rice and she made another dish with kidney beans and bacon and celery and--

Midori Fujii: I think that must be camp food or something. But it was like-

Sono Fujii: And she would serve it over rice. I mean, I hate kidney beans to this day.

Midori Fujii: Yeah, but it was like--

Sono Fujii: But it wasn't, it wasn't until I grew up and realized that, yeah, this is, this is low income food. This is, you know we did not have, I mean, roast beef was rare. We never had roast beef. We had chicken. And of course you couldn't get fish those days. I mean, you could get the blocks of frozen perch filets, but I mean we--

Midori Fujii: Right, I mean, those were the days when stores were only open until 6:00 and not on the weekends right? So that's the other issue.

Sono Fujii: Right, I mean the butcher shop, the butcher closed at 6:00 or 5:00, 01:12:00you know. So we--

Midori Fujii: No but I'm, it didn't feel like a, a tortured, difficult childhood in that--

Sono Fujii: Yeah, I didn't feel poor.

Midori Fujii: Right.

Sono Fujii: We had clothes. We shopped at the budget floor at Field's, but I didn't know what budget floor meant. I mean we just, that's where we bought our clothes.

Emma Saito Lincoln: Do you, do you think people realize, people in the Japanese community, Japanese American community today, who think about the Chicago Shimpo and, and know of your father's role at the newspaper, do you think they realize that all those years that he was doing this incredibly important work that it wasn't financially lucrative?

Sono Fujii: I don't think anybody thought of it that way? And I don't think that the Japanese American community was a, was a wealthy community.

Midori Fujii: Yeah, I don't...

Sono Fujii: I mean I don't know what the parents did. You know, like I mean I go, one of the, the, so there were a number of families in our neighborhood where the kids were like our age, and there was one family that lived in our building, and I know he was an auto mechanic. But I don't know what the other families, you know like what Fred's or Iris's or David's families or Fred, I don't know what their parents did. I mean, they're, they're parents.

Midori Fujii: Yeah, I don't, I think that, as Sono said, I don't think the Japanese community was an affluent community. There were a lot of you know people that were owning a store. It seemed like a very hard working community, in general, right? If you think about Toguri's or any of the ministers that were there. These were not...

Sono Fujii: Franklins.

Midori Fujii: There were a lot of people that were just serving the community. There was a lot of, sort of that was my sense is a community of mutual support and service and not a lot of affluence. And also I think a lot of the nisei returned to the West Coast as they hit retirement age. I mean the Japanese community in Chicago is like, it's a shrinking community. You know, the issei died and the nisei left.

Sono Fujii: Or they, you know they went to the suburbs.

Midori Fujii: Yeah, but a lot of them returned to the West Coast. I think that's right, isn't it? Yeah.

Emma Saito Lincoln: When you were young and your father was working for the paper, did you tag along?

Midori Fujii: Some.

Sono Fujii: I don't remember going to the paper a lot. I mean, I remember working there a couple of summers. I can't, was I in like high school?

Midori Fujii: So part of the thing was, the paper moved from the, near our house 01:15:00to the north side, so our dad commuted from Hyde Park to where it was like right by Wrigley Field.

Sono Fujii: 3744 North Clark.

Midori Fujii: North Clark. Right? And so that's a pretty big hike just to like, if you're just going for a field trip, you just don't do that with your kids if you don't have to.

Sono Fujii: Right.

Midori Fujii: So, I think you did that in high school for work.

Sono Fujii: Right, we didn't, we didn't have a car, so my dad would have to take the, the Garfield bus to the, to Garfield Train Station and then catch the B train to Addison and then walk from Addison to the, I mean that's why he was a Cubs fan.

Midori Fujii: So it was like a, it's a long commute. Right? So, and he just did that and it was like, mmm, nobody thought anything of it. It's just, go to work, come home. It was like that was it.

Emma Saito Lincoln: When you worked there in the summers, what kind of work did 01:16:00you do?

Sono Fujii: Basically, I addressed the papers. So I would go, the paper came out what, every two weeks?

Midori Fujii: Mmm not originally it was...

Sono Fujii: Well, by that time.

Midori Fujii: Yeah, I don't know.

Sono Fujii: Anyway, I would to have put the, they had these, it was a address, it was a labeling address machine and you would just put the papers through it and the address would come out. But it wasn't you know...

Midori Fujii: I think the thing that I remember the most about it is our dad looking for a typesetter. And had like, and he would talk about this one guy that was just so fast and what it was like to be able to find somebody. 'Cause if you look at what it, it's like, like it's, I mean you ca-- unimaginable to think about setting individual characters and type, like just mind numbing, but that's what they did! And um,

Sono Fujii: They had um...

Midori Fujii: We didn't have Xerox machines, so if my dad wanted to copy 01:17:00something, he typed it or transcribed it by hand. And it's like,

Sono Fujii: And it was all in Japanese.

Midori Fujii: Well no. And, but some, like some of the books I, I've went, I've gone through some of his stuff and a chapter from a book that he thought was worth keeping, he had typed it out and I'm like, God.

Sono Fujii: Right.

Midori Fujii: But he wanted to keep it so he did.

Sono Fujii: Right, and he had special printed paper. So the, the newspaper, I mean you know Japanese is written from right to left, and the columns were horizontal columns, and there was a pre-printed like grid kind of paper where he would write his articles. And each little square, he would put a, a character like a kanji or a hiragana, or katakana in there. And, then he would hand that 01:18:00to the typesetter, and the typesetter, had a, he would just pull the different size and put it all by hand. I mean it's just amazing. So, I mean, I don't know if you want, we've got photos of it.

Emma Saito Lincoln: Yes. I think now would be a great time to share those photos.

Sono Fujii: So this is a picture of the, of our dad at the...

Midori Fujii: So these, this is all type here. These like different individual pieces of type.

Sono Fujii: There were different, and there are different size fonts and, for the same character. Here's another picture of him. That's--

Emma Saito Lincoln: Do you remember him ever talking about purchasing the type?

Sono Fujii: There's actually something about that in one of his letters because 01:19:00he had to...

Midori Fujii: He had to rent the type or something. Right?

Sono Fujii: There was some controversy as to where he was going to get it from. I don't know. I'll look for that, and if you want I'll send it to you.

Emma Saito Lincoln: I'm just curious if had to, if that was something they had to order all the way from Japan?

Midori Fujii: Curate it was like the short answer is like it wasn't easy, and, and, and purchasing the actual printing machine and moving that was like, a big deal.

Sono Fujii: There was, I mean I remember that, when growing up, every now and then some guy would drop off these small but really heavy packages. I mean he was a Caucasian guy and this thing would like weigh a ton. I'd say, "What is in that?" you know, "Oh, it's type." I mean, how do you get, in the United States, 01:20:00kanji? I have no idea.

Emma Saito Lincoln: And how do you find a person with the skill to set that type?

Midori Fujii: That is the question. Yeah. I think that these people were from Japan.

Sono Fujii: I mean there was this b- and I sho- and I don't have it, but I, I can send you it again. I've got a picture of this big, huge printing press that was in the back, and it was very noisy.

Midori Fujii: Yeah, it looks like something you'd see at the Museum of Science and Industry. I mean it's like this giant black machine, like industrial strength. I'm like, whoa.

Emma Saito Lincoln: What did you think of your father's work when you were young?

Sono Fujii: It was what he did.

Midori Fujii: Well, I think I would say a couple of things. It's what he did but it was really what he did. Meaning, he'd go to work, but then he'd come home and 01:21:00he'd write and he'd read. So he didn't, it wasn't just like he came home and then that was it. I mean he played with us, he was around. I mean it wasn't like he was like an absent dad. And he was like very different from a lot of, well it wasn't issei either, right? But he really did like do the dishes, and he helped, he was, he didn't help around the house, he was like part of taking care of us and taking care of laundry and doing a lot of different things. So, very un-, very sort of non-traditional in terms of Japanese of his generation. Right?

Sono Fujii: I mean he didn't, he didn't drive a car. He had no interest in driving a car. He was deaf in one ear, so that would've been an issue.

Midori Fujii: But he, but he would--

Sono Fujii: He was somewhat handy around the house.

Midori Fujii: I mean, he would repair things and he could cook, and yeah. But, I 01:22:00think he was really working a lot of the time on the weekends. He was reading, he was writing. I mean really, I think of my dad as a scholar. Don't you? Like as an ac- Like if he were like in another time, he'd be an academic. I think that, that he was really always studying and reading and trying to stay up to date.

Sono Fujii: Right.

Midori Fujii: Enough so that, as Sono said, he did hand write his articles. There were times when he had to wrap his wrist because I think he was getting tendonitis and that kind of thing when he was writing a lot.

Sono Fujii: And he also, he also, I remember him going out at night. I remember him going out tonight-- at night and doing what, I mean, I didn't know at the time. He would say, "I have to go talk to a family." And, and I'm thinking that it was like family counseling, that there were people who were having problems 01:23:00in their family, and they turned to my dad, and he would go and talk to them. And like, he was doing this even when like I was in college. I mean it wasn't an every day thing, but I just remember him having to go out. And I, I remember when my parents separated that that was kept, I mean he originally was going to, wanted to be very open about it, but he told me that someone said to him, "If your marriage can't succeed, what hope is there for the rest of us?" And it was just like, (sigh) so I mean, we never publicized it, but I always had the sense 01:24:00that it was something that we didn't talk openly about.

Midori Fujii: Yeah, I di-, I was not aware of it in that way because I think that, the thing that was notable for me is that our parents got along much better once they weren't trying to, sort of, I mean, by then we're, they're... We're also grown, but they were very supportive of each other. I think certainly early in terms of the Resettlers and that kind of thing. And, our mom was ready, if our dad had been deported to go to Japan with him to get settled and then to send for us. It didn't, I think we only learned that indirectly, I think I learned that from my aunt. And then as, when they were both older, they were 01:25:00very supportive of each other, and so I think that always had a sense that family is family. And that was, I think that's a really pretty strong value. Regardless of like their, whatever individual differences they had. So, we had family Christmases, Thanksgivings, that kind of thing after our parents separated. Um...

Sono Fujii: There was a, there was a

Midori Fujii: It was I think--

Sono Fujii: There was like maybe two years when it was... But I think our mother had a fairly catastrophic...

Midori Fujii: She had a car accident and broke her neck actually.

Sono Fujii: Car accident, and she broke her neck. I mean this was in 1971 and they'd been separated for two years. And my dad and Dori were there like within hours after they found out. My dad was just... devastated by it. I think that 01:26:00really brought them back, brought them together in a way that you know they realized how much they cared for each other in spite of their differences. But, you know, after that we were you know, doing things together and having Christmases together and that kind of stuff again.

Emma Saito Lincoln: You mentioned earlier that, that your mother worked? Partly to help ease the financial strain. What kind of work did she do?

Midori Fujii: She was a social worker and then she was a therapist.

Sono Fujii: She worked at the University of Chicago Libraries for a while too.

Midori Fujii: Mhmm. She worked for Public Aid for a while. I think that system just enraged her though, sort of the bias and the 'no man in the house rule' 01:27:00back then. She was disgusted by it, but... And then, and then she went back to school to get a master's degree.

Emma Saito Lincoln: And then, and I, I know we, we touched a little bit on redress earlier, but when your mother testified at the CWRIC hearing in Chicago, did you attend? Were you there?

Sono Fujii: Mm-mm.

Midori Fujii: Mm-mm. I don't even, I just vaguely remember her saying, I'm going to go do this. It was like, I'm going out to lunch. You know, it was... She'd been working on it so hard and, and after a while you just kind of lost track of it. I mean there were... Once in a while she would say, "Would you read this? or do that, or..." I think I was a little bit, probably more aware of it than you 01:28:00were at that time.

Emma Saito Lincoln: Do you happen to know how she felt about the five minute time limit?

Sono Fujii: No.

Midori Fujii: No.

Sono Fujii: I didn't know there was such a thing.

Midori Fujii: Oh yeah, that. Yeah.

Emma Saito Lincoln: Have you watched the recording?

Midori Fujii: Mm yeah, Catherine got it for us. I had read her testimony, but it's different to see it.

Sono Fujii: Yeah. I know, I know my husband has shared it with some of his colleagues and they use it in their classes. At, you know, someone used it when he was teaching up at Lake Forest College. I don't know anymore, but it's out there.

Emma Saito Lincoln: How did it feel for you watching?

Midori Fujii: To watch it? Oh, that's an interesting, well my, she was much more 01:29:00soft spoken than I remember. I would've thought, she came after, I forget who it was first, she was ver- a very fiery speaker. But my mom, that was like, it didn't seem not like her, but was much more measured. But she seemed so, relatively in my memory when talking about that, sort of silent but deadly, let's put it that way. Quiet but deadly. My mom could have that ability to do that, so.

Emma Saito Lincoln: Do you remember how she felt eventually when the checks were issued and the apology letters were sent out? Or your grandmother, how she felt?

Sono Fujii: More about my grandmother. So, my grandmother was one of the named plaintiffs, and there actually was a ceremony in San Jose where the checks were 01:30:00given to some of the older, to the Issei, and my grandmother gave a speech. And the only reason we know so much about it is the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division was John Dunne at the time. And Mr. Dunne had been a partner at the law firm where I worked. And he was in the New York office and I was in the Chicago office. And one of the partners in Chicago knew that he was going to be doing this. And he reached out to Mr. Dunne and told him that my grandmother was going to be there and that you know, I'd been working for the 01:31:00law firm for like 20 years. So they had a correspondence and they had an exchange at the, at the ceremony, and that, it was covered in the papers as well. And my grandmother said that the apology was what meant more. She said if they hadn't, if there hadn't been the apology, accepting the money only would've left her with a funny feeling. She wouldn't have felt right. And I think that's true. I think that the, the apology was what was the most important to them, to the Issei, and to the Japanese community. Because I mean, $20,000 wasn't going to compensate for what happened.

Midori Fujii: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that's a good question. I don't know that my mom felt, our mom felt that much satisfaction. I think she was like, 01:32:00yeah, that's the least that should have been done.

Sono Fujii: Right.

Midori Fujii: It was the, the bare minimum I don't think she thought... You know 'cause she was, she really believed in reparations and it, you know it's kind of a negligible amount, and she's pretty clear about that in her testimony so...

Emma Saito Lincoln: I think we need to start wrapping up unfortunately, 'cause I think we could keep talking for quite some time. I think in closing, I'd love to know what each of you would like future generations to know about your family's experiences. What would you like them to take away from all of this?

Midori Fujii: Well, it's not over. You look at what we're dealing with in this country. It's like you know, all we need to do is look at immigration history. 01:33:00And it's a history of racism and privilege and people being unsure about, clear eyed about what values really matter. So yeah, I mean, the, our current moment couldn't be more clear. I think there's no, there's, it's not a, hopefully not a surprise that the Japanese and the Asi-, the AAIP community and Black Lives Matter, and there's some allyship finally in those communities that I don't think was there previously. So, I guess that's what I have to say. It's like don't get me started. (laughs)

Sono Fujii: Yeah, I mean, I think I want our children to know about it and I 01:34:00want our children to understand its importance. We have been to Heart Mountain twice. All of our child- all of my children have been there. Your--

Midori Fujii: One of my two children has been there.

Sono Fujii: I want them, I think they understand the importance of it. I think our s- my son moreso. I don't want it to be forgotten. I don't want it to be considered irrelevant. I don't want... To, to move on.

Midori Fujii: You know it's understanding origin, or it's like understanding your history, whether it's how this country was founded and, and who was disenfranchised along the way and how communities form and sustain themselves. I mean the J-, you know the Japanese commu- and some of the model minority issues that have sort of divided communities, that's all part of this, I think in terms of... and I think understanding all of that and understanding the pieces of a story, whether it's your own family history, whether it's the nation's history or community's history, like, it you-- in terms of understanding the context of the decisions that we're making today. It isn't just a flash on the news. Right? It's not like this moment in time. There's a whole underpinning to that, and we 01:36:00just need to have a better informed you know voter, I don't know, populace, whatever, I don't know you know, in terms of just understanding. Democracy, is not... You have to work at it. It is not just something that happens at war. People knew what was happening on the West Coast and there were some people that were opposed, but it just went along. Right? And that's, you know, we take so many things for granted that aren't automatic.

Emma Saito Lincoln: I think we'll end on that note, what, what democracy takes. Thank you both so much for participating.

Sono Fujii: Thank you.